Ethan Hawke Talks BEFORE MIDNIGHT; Says ‘We May Have Come to the End of the Story’

Three weeks ago, production wrapped on Before Midnight, the third entry in the incredibly well regarded Before Sunrise/Sunset series directed by Richard Linklater. The fascinating thing: nobody even knew the picture had been written or was in production. The films, for those unfamiliar, follow Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) as they meet, talk and fall in love all in a day and night.

At the press junket for Sinister earlier today, I had the opportunity to speak with star Ethan Hawke about the recently shot and wrapped Before Midnight. Hawke was more than willing to open up about the newest entry in the series, the writing process behind the films and whether or not Before Midnight will be the last in the series. For Hawke’s thought on the film, hit the jump.

Here’s the part of the interview on Before Midnight. The transcript is below the video.

Ethan Hawke: [Before Midnight’s] really a continuation. For me, we just filmed it a couple days ago and I’m still kind of high from the experience. The hardest thing will certainly be… that the first two have a real following. People care about these characters and we really feel an obligation not to let people down about it. But at the same time, there’s no way we’re going to make everybody happy so we just had to try to go about with the same approach and same attitude. I love this movie. And I feel like in a strange way we may have come to the end of the story.

So this is the last one. I can’t expect another “Before” film every six or seven years?

Ethan Hawke: We’ll see. We’ll see. You never know but it feels like the story’s reaching its resolution.

What’s the writing process now like between you, Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater?

Ethan Hawke: It’s an unbelievably weird experience. On all the movies it’s happened really organically and each one in a completely different way. But the short answer is that we usually, the three of us, have gotten together and figured out an outline of where the characters are right now and an outline of what the movie would be. Then we go off separately and write a lot and come back together and compare what we’ve written. And kinda take the greatest hits of everybody’s work.